Gao Laozhuang – Annotated Edition

Author: Jia Pingwa, commented by Chen Ze
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: "Zi Lu decided to return to Gao La Zhuang, while a landslide occurred on Ji Jia Ling, five miles north of Gao La Zhuang." Integrating a person's subjective consciousness with a sudden natural mutation—this is the opening line of Gao La Zhuang, which reads almost like something out of thin air, easily reminding one of García Márquez or Borges. Gao La Zhuang, this strange village, is the hometown of Gao Zi Lu, a professor in the provincial capital. On this trip, he returns with his remarried wife, Xi Xia, to pay a three-year anniversary offering for his father. In Gao La Zhuang, they will encounter Zi Lu's divorced but not yet separated ex-wife, Ju Wa; Wang Wenlong, the director of the flooring factory; Shi Tou, a disabled son with extraordinary abilities; and Cai Lao Hei, Su Hong, and countless inscriptions that stir Xi Xia's imagination. Life, death, birth, eating, drinking, defecating, urinating, ghosts and gods, and the human desire for food and sex—all ultimately boil down to a chaotic rural battle in a changing era. On the surface, it seems quite lively, but the loose structure, ambiguous hints and metaphors, overly artificial characterizations, and excessive focus on trivial, vulgar actions all contribute to a sense of boredom and oppression.
"Zi Lu decided to return to Gao La Zhuang, while a landslide occurred on Ji Jia Ling, five miles north of Gao La Zhuang." Integrating a person's subjective consciousness with a sudden natural mutation—this is the opening line of Gao La Zhuang, which reads almost like something out of thin air, easily reminding one of García Márquez or Borges. Gao La Zhuang, this strange village, is the hometown of Gao Zi Lu, a professor in the provincial capital. On this trip, he returns with his remarried wife, Xi Xia, to pay a three-year anniversary offering for his father. In Gao La Zhuang, they will encounter Zi Lu's divorced but not yet separated ex-wife, Ju Wa; Wang Wenlong, the director of the flooring factory; Shi Tou, a disabled son with extraordinary abilities; and Cai Lao Hei, Su Hong, and countless inscriptions that stir Xi Xia's imagination. Life, death, birth, eating, drinking, defecating, urinating, ghosts and gods, and the human desire for food and sex—all ultimately boil down to a chaotic rural battle in a changing era. On the surface, it seems quite lively, but the loose structure, ambiguous hints and metaphors, overly artificial characterizations, and excessive focus on trivial, vulgar actions all contribute to a sense of boredom and oppression.
As a symbolically significant Gao La Zhuang, it is the hometown where Zi Lu grew up. The people there are said to be pure Han Chinese, yet they are short, coarse, and vulgar, with each generation becoming less refined. Thus, to "replace the race" and pursue a completely different way of life, Zi Lu was fortunate enough to leave Gao La Zhuang early in his life and became a distinguished professor. However, when he returned to this remote town years later, the old culture, environment, and people pushed him back to his old ways, regaining all his flaws—conservatism, selfishness, vulgarity, infighting, hypocrisy, and more. On this level, Gao La Zhuang is like a mirror, reflecting the "decline of the race and degeneration" caused by "old culture" (Jia Pingwa's words). Such a theme naturally reflects the profound reflective consciousness that matches the author's level. However, in the concrete writing of the novel, we see more chaos, disorganization, artificiality, and forced allegories. For example, the novel repeatedly features UFOs, the mysterious Bai Yun Qiu, the disabled Shi Tou who knows the future, and a hairpin said to be given by the dead. The author clearly intends to give these and other elements symbolic and allegorical meaning, but the tangled descriptions of trivial matters and the strained symbolism themselves fall far short. It's like a practitioner who desperately tries to speed up but accidentally goes astray—his ramblings not only fail to reveal the true essence of the practice but also lead us to follow him into delusion. (At the same time, these elements with a touch of magical realism easily remind us of the philosophical, overly elaborate ox in Ru Du—a weak point!)
At the end of the novel, when the city dweller Xi Xia resolutely stays in Gao La Zhuang, while the rural Zi Lu has no choice but to return to the city alone, I can only read two words like flies: artificiality!
It is undeniable that Jia Pingwa has always been a rarity in contemporary Chinese literature. The language of Gao La Zhuang still flows like clouds and water, maintaining his habitual style. But what is heartbreaking is that Jia Pingwa has repeatedly stated in his postscript and in conversations with Sun Jianxi that, "My effort is to break free from artificial arrangements. Even the most brilliant writers, no matter how wonderful their stories may be, cannot match the great harmony and order of the real world arranged by heaven—that is the grandeur of history. I always want to sneakily approach this realm." Pursuing nature is right, but as seen in Gao La Zhuang, Jia Pingwa still lingers in the shadows of works like Ru Du, Bai Ye, and Tu Men, and he has yet to break free from the delusion of delusion. As Sun Jianxi jokingly put it in a Shaanxi dialect, it's "stuck in the beginning, and haunted by the ghost in the end."
Gao La Zhuang is Jia Pingwa's sixth long. To evaluate the significance of this new work seems easy but is also difficult to fully articulate. The reason is that Jia Pingwa and some artists in Shaanxi, who constantly pursue artistic innovation, always achieve breakthroughs through continuous climbing. My duty is to guide readers in understanding this book, to feel the author's soul and thoughts through these. But my thoughts are often carried away by the changes in the characters and events in the book. I feel as if I am not reading a novel but experiencing a real life firsthand. I am excited and moved by this. The more I see the exquisite structure and composition in the text, the deeper I sink, and the harder it becomes to write my comments. I know that the author wrote this book with a calm and ordinary heart. In his excitement, he cannot truly convey the depth and meaning of the book to the readers. So I try to calm my emotions and approach my writing with a sense of ordinary calm.